Lucas Germanos

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT LUCAS GERMANOS

Spokesperson | Board & ExCo Advisor | Communications Director | External Affairs | EY Fintech Judge | Mentor @Rise Barclays | Mentor @Techstars | Pledge2025.org | Obama for America | PRWeek Movers & Shakers Bank of the Year 2023 Fintech of the Year 2023 Best Loan Provider 2023 Diversity in fintech 🦄 ‍ SUMMARY I lead communications and external affairs at digital bank Zopa, the tech Unicorn founded in 2020 that raised $500 million from the early investors of Uber, Slack and Alibaba to build Britain’s best bank using AI (750 employees, 1m customers, £250m revenue). Working directly with the CEO, in 12 months I established Zopa as the UK’s #1 most mentioned digital bank in the press and quadrupled (4x) its earned media coverage. I also crafted Zopa’s new narrative as it transitioned from a P2P lender to a regulated bank, led a $300m funding round by SoftBank, and mobilised a 40-strong industry coalition to combat the cost-of-living crisis at pledge2025.org. I have 20 years of on-the-record media experience as a spokesman, reporter, political aide, and most recently at Milltown Partners advising some of Silicon Valley\'s most iconic technology businesses. Experience includes working for Google, Facebook, Microsoft, WhatsApp, Dropbox, Stripe, Plaid, and the Obama-Biden presidential campaign. In my last in-house role I was Global Communications Director across 150 countries at online money transfer firm WorldRemit, the largest digital competitor of Western Union (10m users,$400m revenue,$10b transactions). In 3 years I launched WorldRemit in 45 countries, increased media coverage +40%, and helped scale transactions 5x as the company tripled in headcount and valuation. Previously, I covered the 2008 financial crisis as a journalist and served as a spokesperson in government. In 2012 I published my first handbook with job hunting tips and strategies for those hit the hardest by the economic recession. I began my career at the United Nations in New York monitoring the implementation of the financial counter-terrorism legislation introduced in the aftermath of 9/11. I completed my postgraduate studies in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School, Tufts University on a Fulbright scholarship sponsored by the US State Department. I also studied political communications at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and most recently leadership and venture capital financing at Stanford University in California. I was born in France, raised in Greece, and lived in 7 capitals in the world. I speak 5 languages and currently live in London.